“Winning and losing are both very temporary things. Having done one or the other, you move on. Gloating over a victory or sulking over a loss is a good way to stand still.” – Chuck KnoxI don’t know about you, but I don’t like being stuck. When something goes wrong -- meaning, I’ve made a mistake -- it’s a personal setback, to be sure. I don’t like it, but I’m not going to dwell on it any longer than necessary.

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” – Jalaluddin RumiMy belief is that you invest joy in yourself. No one can take it with them when they leave.

When you live in joy, finding appreciation in the seemingly trivial things in life, the quiet moments you share with others, in your accomplishments, pursuing your dreams, making full use of your talents and abilities, you grow your self-confidence, boost your self-esteem, and realize that you are whole and complete as you are.

As a therapist, many people come in with issues with grief. For years I have tried to help clients figure out the well know Elisabeth Kubler Ross Stages of Grief and what stage in their grief they are in: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It has been sad to watch clients suffer and deal with grief. I have wished many times that I could...

And in case you were wondering, the proverbial “evil” would be my dormant mental health issues.

Growing up in an upper-class family in Des Moines, Iowa, mental health was an afterthought -- sandwiched in between tennis matches, gawky Homecoming dance photos, and college football Saturdays. While I struggled with perfectionism (presaging a later struggle with OCD), my mother glossed over my mental rigidity.

“You just have high standards, Matthew,” she soothingly reassured to me and -- perhaps -- herself.

You are home on a Friday night without any plans. Or you’re sitting in a restaurant with a group of friends, and yet you still feel lonely.

Or you’re sitting on the subway, on your way to work, and the feeling of loneliness sneaks into that space, too. Or you’re perusing social media, looking at photos of glistening faces, of glistening lives. And the ache of loneliness surges. Or you think you’re the only one who gets panicked at the grocery store, the only one who still mourns a loved one’s loss 30 years later, the only one who doesn’t speak to their family, the only one who feels lost.

Why memories hurt

When an experience is recorded as a memory, it goes through the emotional and cognitive filters, assumptions and interpretations of the person. This is one of the reasons why different people can have quite different recollections of the same event.

I never like to be the bearer of bad news, but unlike a scraped knee or a cracked femur, emotional wounds do not heal with time. It’s a nice, thoughtless cliché that people resort to when they feel like others need hope or comfort. But it's not true.

Your partner was unfaithful and now you are trying to get past all the hurt it’s causing you. You may be experiencing a number of different emotions including embarrassment, shame, guilt, anger, and sadness. You are probably going through a rollercoaster of feelings; loving and hating your spouse, all at the same time. Maybe you are wondering if this incredible pain will ever go away and end.

Like many painful emotions, we don’t talk much about grief. Grief is the emotional experience that results from any type of loss. Being the experience-that-must-not-be-named (yes, I just made a Harry Potter reference) gives rise to lot of confusion and misconceptions about what grief actually is, so I’d like to take the chance to debunk some of these erroneous ideas. 1. “It’s the same as depression.”

Divorce is tough for many reasons. Not only are we dealing with the emotions and logistics and finances, but after the dust has settled, we may feel like our life's plans have changed direction. The life you planned and your vision of the future may disappear, leaving you with a feeling of not knowing what to do or where to go from here.

But when you feel like this, don’t panic! There is merely one thing you must remember: